Don't
by Pardon the Insanity
Summary: He didn't want to feel, and he didn't want to care. But around Orihime, Ulquiorra found it difficult to keep from doing either. Ulquihime
1. Don't Speak

Sooo this is my first little attempt at an Ulquihime fic. I have all the chapters -- which aren't too long -- mostly written and in the cleaning stage, so hopefully everything should be posted in a timely manner.

Anyway, I hope it's at least an enjoyable read. Since it is my first try, I'd especially appreciate any feedback. I'm still feeling my way around the characters and how I want to write them, so it'd be nice to know how this one turned out for future reference.

Mmm is it even worth my time to say that I disclaim, since it's so painfully obvious that I own nothing?

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_Don't speak._

It had been the first order Ulquiorra had given her, those months ago when he had retrieved her from the human world. And she had complied, remaining silent even when he had returned at midnight to bring her to Hueco Mundo. From there, she had been little more than a shadow as she ghosted his steps through the long white halls to her room.

But then she had begun to speak to him. In the beginning, it had amounted to nothing in his mind, senseless and pointless babbling. It was likely for that reason that he had allowed it and not reiterated his earlier command. The woman could have nothing of any consequence to say, so what difference did it make if she spoke or not?

If what she said was of such little interest, however, it made it hard for him to explain why he had started to listen to her. Perhaps it was because of boredom, or some vague sense of curiosity. To understand her would be to better understand the enemy, and any knowledge that he could gain on that subject would only help Aizen-sama's pursuits. There couldn't be any harm in humoring her apparent need for conversation.

But the only conclusions that Ulquiorra had been able to draw were those he had already assumed – humans were inane creatures entirely driven by their emotions. It was frustrating to be in her presence, every shortcoming of humanity so perfectly demonstrated in her character.

Yet it was strange because, for all her weakness, she was strong. She swayed under the forces that pushed her fate, bowed low from the weight of her sorrows and fears, but she did not break. He could not understand how she retained the hope she did when faced with the odds raised against her.

Her strange resilience might have been why he had started to look for reasons to see her. His orders had been to make sure that she was in a state such that, when needed, she would be useful. In the beginning, he had foreseen three short visits a day to briefly ensure her health when her meals were brought to her. As she had done and said things that were beyond his ability to comprehend, however, it had seemed necessary to observe her more often. How did she have such overwhelming confidence in her friends, even when there was no possibility that they would be able to save her? What had she truly been thinking when she had so effortlessly lied that she lived to serve Aizen-sama? Why did so much life still shine in her eyes after all she had been through?

He closed his eyes for a moment, a silent sigh, before opening them again and considering the woman sitting across the table. She had seemed so simple initially, so easy to classify and dismiss. So why did he find himself with so many useless questions about her?

The soft click of her fork as she set it down broke the silence of the room and returned his focus. Ulquiorra dropped his gaze to the remainder of her dinner, noting how much she had eaten. "Have you finished?"

For a moment she blinked, as though clearing away her thoughts, and then nodded. There was a pause before he moved to rise, when she spoke. "Why do you stay here during my meals, Ulquiorra?"

Now standing, he slid his hands into his pockets. "Does my presence distress you?"

Her expressive eyes widened, and she shook her head. "No, I don't mind," she said quickly and then was silent, as though she had spoken before truly comprehending the meaning of her words.

"Then does it matter?"

Her gaze fell now, down and away from him so that her coppery hair slipped over her shoulder and obscured her face. "I suppose not."

Considering the short conversation to be finished, Ulquiorra left the room, gesturing for the servant to go in and retrieve her dishes. He waited until the servant exited again before once again locking the door and walking through the heavy quiet of the hall.

Yet suddenly it was impossible to keep his thoughts as silent as his surroundings. Her words had been like a stone in still water, rippling the calmness of his mind. A sort of satisfaction that she was not uncomfortable with him near, and confusion that he should feel so. As much as he would have liked it, he could not be totally devoid of emotion, but he had believed himself capable of at least monitoring their intensity and direction.

Perhaps he could have brushed off the incident, had it not happened before, and with increasing frequency. It seemed that every time she spoke to him, something new bubbled to the surface of his psyche from where it had been trapped under centuries of repression.

So if her words were the center of this alarming trend, then there was a simple, logical way to return to the apathy he had embraced lifetimes ago: he would refuse to allow her to speak.

But with the melody of her voice still haunting his mind, Ulquiorra vaguely wondered if logic was enough anymore.


	2. Don't Look

Hmm… I probably should have mentioned that these first two chapters are more set up than anything else, so they are kind of uneventful and fluff-less. Hopefully that doesn't turn people away, though, since I do fully intend to indulge my inner fangirl… I just can't imagine Ulquiorra completely jumping the gun at the start. The guy needs some time to get his head around everything.

Anyway, this is the shortest chapter, but the next chapter should be up in a couple days to keep me from feeling like a slag. Even though it's ridiculously tiny, I hope you enjoy it!

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It should have been enough. Whether the boy lived or died was of no concern; it was the coldness, the violence, of the action that should have fallen with the greatest weight. No simple death at the end of a sword, or with the obliterating force of his cero, but from the hole carved into the shinigami's chest by his hand. Ulquiorra had been sure that somehow the woman would hear of what he had done, but that she had witnessed the damage herself was even better. Surely she would then hate him for so grievously wounding the boy she cared for, releasing him from this strange hold she possessed over him.

So he did not understand how she could look at him like that.

There was a certain softness in her expression as he returned her to her room, the indicator of some emotion he did not know. He wished that she wouldn't look at him that way, although he would never say as much. Too many questions would follow, and if they were like any of the ones he posed to himself, he did not want to hear them asked by _her_.

Her words, which had started off as so uninteresting, had become undeniably dangerous in the consideration he gave them. And now, as Ulquiorra met her bright eyes with his indifferent ones, it seemed that simply her presence was causing warnings to press against the back of his mind as well.

"It's very kind of you to allow me to walk outside," she said softly as soon as they had both stepped into the shadows of her room.

"I am merely ensuring your health as I was ordered," he replied immediately, a simple explanation that averted any necessity of analyzing his motives more closely.

Faintly, the corners of her lips pulled up in a small, weary smile. "But why should my health matter when I am no longer of use to Aizen? You said yourself that I was useless now." She stepped through the darkness of the room to the small square of wan light the moon reluctantly dropped through her window. "It makes me wonder why I am still here. I can't quite decide if I am grateful or not."

"You think that death is preferable?"

"No, I would much rather live than die. But I do not know if a life that only causes pain to others is one worth having, or if a life here is really living. Perhaps you can tell me." She half turned now, raising her head to look at him with a gravity that made her seem so much older than he knew her to be. "Can one live in the land of the dead?"

The strength in her eyes he had expected, but not the desperation. It was too clear, borne without any attempt at pretence, of protecting herself from rebuke. After every insult he had thrown at her for her foolish emotions, every caustic remark about the stupidity of sentimentality, how could she reveal something so raw to him without thinking he would simply cut new wounds into her bleeding heart?

But he wondered in the moment that they watched each other if perhaps she was seeing something in him, too, before he slid his gaze to the side. "No. You can do nothing more than exist," he finally responded.

He listened to the soft tap of her shoes against the stone floor, but did not look at her until she stood in front of him. One of her hands was clenched before her chest, an ambiguous action caught somewhere between shrinking back and reaching forward. "If the living can do no more than exist here, what about the dead?" she asked softly, almost to herself. "What about you?"

Ulquiorra felt a touch of irritation at this query, refusing to examine his place in that world for the sake of her peace of mind. "Woman, don't look for meaning where there is none. I have no purpose but to serve Aizen-sama."

She continued to look at him steadily, emotions filtering across her face that he could not name. "I cannot believe that is true. You've lived longer than Aizen has had influence, so you must have followed your own will at one time." She turned her head slightly, eyebrows drawing together thoughtfully. "Is his success truly the only thing you care about? Do you not desire anything for yourself?"

Ulquiorra's eyes briefly touched upon the slender arc of her throat as she looked at him, upon the soft dark line of her eyelashes framing her bright eyes. Stepping back, he turned to the door. "I will say it again; do not look for what is not there."


	3. Don't Try

Okay, so not quite as quickly as I would have liked, but I did get this posted before the week was out, so I hope that counts. Anyway, I don't have much to say about this one… although now it gets into the stuff I enjoyed writing. Hopefully you guys will like it, too. Please let me know what you think!

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He could see the tears in her eyes even though she had quickly tried to wipe them away as he entered.

Ulquiorra stood by the door as the cart with the woman's dinner was brought in, taking the moment to try to detect what had caused her to cry. There had been a handful of occasions in the past when he knew she had cried, either hearing her muffled sobs through her door himself or from the reports of those who guarded the corridor. Yet it had seemed that all these episodes had occurred around the time of the failed rescue, and he had believed that perhaps she had moved past the grief strong enough to draw tears. Now he wondered if she had not simply taught herself to be silent.

Her tears… discomforted him. The vividness of her emotions often wore at his patience, but to have them manifest themselves in such a physical, tangible way managed to twist something inside him uncomfortably. Her heart, her feelings, he could not see, and therefore he did not have to accept that they existed. But when they collected in such an obvious way, it was impossible to pretend that her emotions were not real.

The servant had silently left, snuffing out the bright artificial light when they shut the door. In the watery silver glow that was left, Ulquiorra watched her brush the back of a hand across her eyes again as she rose, bowing her head as she approached the table and sat in her chair.

He wondered if all the other days that found her in such a somber mood had also started with her tears, if she had simply been careful to hide it from him, what had made today different.

She ate silently, only the faint sounds of cutlery disturbing the air, and Ulquiorra was surprised to find that it was not as pleasant as he had guessed it would be. Recently, it had seemed more and more impossible to get her to be quiet, her voice bubbling with more life than he would have thought possible a few months earlier. It had made him realize that he had truly never known anything about who she was, because the only times he had been in her presence were when she was under some sort of stress. He had never known her when she had been carefree, when she had been happy.

And now he was remembering that, regardless of what appearances might have seemed, it was impossible that she could have been reaching some sort of peace with her situation. If she really had been as joyful as her demeanor had recently hinted, then there was nothing in that land that would allow her to once again feel that way. It was a strangely disappointing thought, that he would see her sorrow and fear, her defiance and strength, but never her happiness.

She had quietly drawn his attention when she finished, and he had brought in the servant to remove the dishes. Wordlessly she stood, moving to stand below her window as she had done when he had first brought her to Las Noches, still and silent as the cart was again wheeled out. Ulquiorra took a few steps toward the door, ready to leave the woman to whatever grief she was overcome with now, but closed the door instead.

She seemed oblivious to his lingering presence, although he was sure that she would have been able to sense his reiatsu. Vaguely, he wondered how deeply she had succumbed to her feelings that she did not even hear him approach her.

"Why are you crying now, woman?"

He watched her stiffen, heard her breath catch, before she spun to look at him. The tears kept at bay during her meal now spilled down her cheeks, bright and undeniable against her skin. Her mouth opened slightly, words hovering on the verge of speech, before confusion eclipsed her shock. "Why are you still here?" she breathed, making no move to wipe her eyes now.

"Answer the question."

Finally, she dipped her head, face now half shadow and half light. "You wouldn't understand." A pause and then, almost as an afterthought, "I don't even understand."

A typical consequence of being human, not even comprehending one's self. They were full of such confusion, indecision, doubt. So many weaknesses.

"Try," he pressed, the apathy in his voice at odds with his true curiosity.

For a moment she considered him, her eyes searching for something in his that he was sure she would not find. All the same, she took a deep breath and wiped the tears from her cheeks with her sleeve. "I have just been thinking about what you said the last time we went for a walk, that there wasn't anything you wanted."

Ulquiorra had not realized that he had made predictions regarding her answer until he felt her response instantly scatter them. That boy, her friends, the life she had left behind, yes, he could imagine her crying for those things she had lost. But to shed tears over anything concerning him…?

New questions pressed against his lips as he looked down at her, watching her twist her hands together uncomfortably, before finally speaking. "How foolish. I believe I made it clear that there was no reason to consider that subject further," he said, but found it impossible to force as much coldness into the words as he would have liked.

"I know," she acknowledged, as though she had even thought this herself. "But… I wanted to try to understand how somebody could live for nothing."

He had opened his mouth to respond to this absurd comment, but the words were strangely hard to form; as he watched her eyes shift, turning toward the remainder of his mask, he wondered what sort of conclusion she had reached.

"I thought it might have been simply because you were a hollow, at first," she said quietly. "But some of the others seem to do whatever they please, like Grimmjow. So then I figured that it had to be something else."

"I don't see how this explains the pathetic state you were in."

She seemed more uncomfortable now than she had even been when he first entered, catching her with her tears, but after a moment she found her voice again. "The pain of others always seems to have an effect on me, but I only cry when it seems truly tragic." Again, those bright eyes, still damp lashes reflecting moonlight, looked back at him. "And… I think not wanting anything is how you're protecting yourself. I think you're afraid that something will hurt you."

Suddenly, he did not know why he had stayed so long, listened to so much of her nonsense. How could he have been interested in her words, even for a moment? Nothing she said was worth considering.

Without saying anything further to her, he turned, intent on leaving her and her absurdity. He had even made it halfway to her door before he felt her hands daringly slip around his arm, a feeble attempt to stop him.

"Release me, before I force you to do so," he said, not bothering to look at her.

But instead of withdrawing her hands, she clutched his sleeve tighter. "It's true though, isn't it?"

"I do not feel such useless things now."

Somehow she had stepped around him so that she again stood in front of him, and he vaguely wondered how this action had gone by completely unnoticed. "But you did at one time," she murmured softly, finally letting go of his arm. For a second, something inside him relaxed, until it became clear that she had only released him to allow her to raise a hand to his face. The light touch of her fingers burned a path over one of the teal marks that ran down his cold cheeks, lingering against his jaw. "You can hide everything else, but not these."

"Stop, Orihime."

Instantly, her fingers stilled, allowing him to take hold of her wrist and lower it to her side. Releasing her as quickly as he could, he returned his hand to his pocket with a calmness that belied the chaos of his thoughts. "You are wasting your time. Don't try to understand me."

She did not attempt to stop him again as he walked to the door, but her voice followed his exit, even though the soft words seemed to be meant only for her.

"But I want to try."


	4. Don't Feel

Well, this is the final chapter. I'm sorry for the delay in posting, but it's not quite two weeks, sooo... it could be worse? Anyway, I hope you all enjoy this chapter -- I had a lot of fun writing it!

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Pain and fear were what marked the existence of a hollow. It was always there, in every moment; consuming human souls might ease it, for a while, but it was never relief. It became the core of every thought, and the motivation of every action.

The one thing Ulquiorra had wanted and the one thing he had gained through centuries of struggle was the ability to control those impulses, to pull himself above the flood of raw instinct. As his power had increased, so had his ability to reason, to think and analyze, until he had realized that the best way to keep from feeling the pain was to feel nothing.

And so that was how he had survived, and if he had not been content, he had at least been able to bear his existence. He had even been able to _almost_ forget what it was like to have emotions.

Until Orihime.

The darkness of his own rooms, far away enough from her that he could not even sense a wisp of her spiritual pressure, did nothing to help. The memory of her warm fingers against his skin still lingered, and his hands twitched to touch his face, almost convinced that she had damaged him in some way.

But it was ridiculous to think that she could do anything to physically harm him. Her slap those months ago had done nothing but surprise him somewhat, and her one offensive attack had proved to be similarly useless against Yammi.

No, where all her strength lay was in her character, something he had realized long ago. Yet he had never made that critical connection, that this inner strength could have effects beyond herself, that she could use it to touch those around her. It had seemed so impossible that she could ever reach him after he had so perfectly managed to detach himself from everything.

It had not been until she had physically crossed that boundary that Ulquiorra realized that she had already sunk so deeply into him. He suddenly recognized that he had not tried to understand her for Aizen; he had tried to understand her because he _wanted_ to understand her, to somehow see the world in the strange way she did. Watching her, listening to her, simply being in her presence, had woken up things he had long ago set aside, left forgotten to avoid the torment of remembering.

But remembering now did not hurt as he had thought it would. It ached, of course, but somehow being around her brought greater relief than anything he had encountered before.

Ulquiorra had not wanted it, he still did not want it, but he felt her so tangled into the threads of his thoughts that he did not know how he could ever separate her again. So no, she had done nothing to physically harm him. But mentally she had destroyed him.

He wondered how obvious it was, if everybody else had watched these cracks grow in his perfect façade, had seen the weakness to which he had succumbed. In allowing this weakness to take root, had he also become weak? What would happen to him now?

It was almost unconscious when he opened his door, forcing his feet to move at a normal pace, to not reach her room in the half breath that sonido would require. The time was needed to think, to consider the wisdom of any action he might take and reflect on the issue with some semblance of logic. But as everything felt like it was crumbling, it was hard to remind himself of how adverse he was to simply following his impulses.

So when he had opened her door, checking the pressure of the shove so that he did not simply slam the heavy door against the wall, he had no idea what to say, or even if he wanted to say anything.

But she had already stood, the momentary surprise at his sudden entrance eclipsed by what seemed to be curiosity and worry, if he had learned anything about reading her expressions. He noticed that she did not approach him like she often did, instead watching him silently from the distance between them. Perhaps it was better this way.

Slowly, Ulquiorra shut the door behind him, thinking, gauging, considering. Why had it been so important to see her, why had he not forced himself to stop and ask what he even hoped to accomplish by doing this?

"Are you angry with me?"

The soft hesitance of her voice broke his disorganized thoughts, and he noticed that she had taken the first tentative steps toward him.

Angry… yes, he was angry. But with her? It would have been so much simpler if that had been the case, but he was realizing just how much he had lied to himself with regards to her. He would not continue to do something so meaningless.

Apparently, however, his continued silence gave her the impression of some reply he had not yet disclosed. "It's because I touched you, isn't it?" she asked, tucking a strand of hair back behind her ear. "I know I shouldn't have treated you so familiarly. I guess I just forget where I am sometimes…"

Here, at least, he could think of a clear response, without the hazy confusion that was interfering with so many of his thoughts. "That seems hard to believe. What about your condition would allow you to forget that you are a prisoner who is completely alone?"

For such a seemingly simple question, the silence that followed was puzzling. He saw her hands clench and relax at her sides, noted the shallowness of her breathing.

"You," she finally murmured to the floor, the word almost lost in the air.

He wished it had been.

For a moment he could think of no possible way to continue, feeling everything lit so that facets he had not even imagined were illuminated, nothing changed but everything different. "I am the reason you were brought here; Aizen-sama learned of your abilities through me. Everything you have gone through, and everything your friends went though for your sake, has been because of me."

She shook her head, but did not reply.

"I have made you cry."

"But I've also cried for you."

He could not stand it, the sympathy that he had not asked for and had not earned. With measured steps, he approached her. "Why do you continue to try to treat me as though I were a human?"

"Because you _were_ a human," she answered.

The movement was too quick for her to pull back, too quick for him to reconsider. By the time he had raised her hand, he had pulled down the zipper of his coat enough that he could press her fingers over the hole at the base of his throat.

"This is what I am now," he said tonelessly, trying to concentrate around the heat her small hand pressed into his fingers and chest.

She did not move when he let go, her hand still lingering against his skin as she looked at him. Her eyes were wide, but she stepped closer and moved her other hand to join the first, gaze lowering as she gently traced over the edges of the hollow hole. "This isn't what I see when I'm around you," she said, voice soft but sincere.

He had fought so many battles that they all blended into one long path of violence behind him. He had defeated opponents of incredible strength until he had secured a place where few could hope to even challenge him. By no means had he believed himself to be invincible, but he never imagined that the one he would fall before would be a young human woman.

He could _feel_ it now, despite every attempt to again draw the nothingness around himself; it would take her no more than one word, one more touch, and what he had left would be undone. Because when she managed to look back up at him, he could see in her eyes what had haunted the edges of his own thoughts, kept at bay only because she had done nothing to put those things into words or actions. But with it hanging half-spoken between them, he could no longer deny it.

So Ulquiorra did not stop her when the fingers at his throat hesitantly moved upward, touching the remainder of his mask on one side and his hair on the other, before shifting to settle more firmly against his face. She had stepped closer, too warm and too alive to be so near him, but he did no more than watch as she trembled.

"You're afraid," he noted quietly.

"Not of you," she replied, and crossed the remaining space between them as though to reinforce her words.

She still looked at him, unflinching and undaunted. "You should be," he murmured, but it held a certain sadness he could not explain, because it was not a threat – it was merely the truth. As his hand slid from his pocket and curled around her hip, he wondered how many he had killed with those fingers that could now lie so gently against her fragile body. And when he felt her sigh brush across his skin, he thought about how simple it would be to remove the feeble restraints that anchored her soul. It would be so easy to destroy her.

But either she did not realize or did not care, because instead of stepping back, instead of pulling away, she turned her face up toward his. In that instant as she gently leaned against him to steady herself, he knew what would happen if he stayed. Edges of reason frayed by her proximity tried to remove his hand from her waist, tried to get him to take just a single step away from her, but he found that the only movement he could accomplish was lowering his head so that her mouth could finally reach his.

It was torture, dredging up things from lifetimes ago that were too vivid for the black and white world he had accepted. Yet it was impossible to pull away from that softness, so foreign and somehow so familiar, when the fire it had instantly sent through every nerve suddenly began to burn in an entirely different way.

For a moment, Ulquiorra felt his control slip as he pressed his lips more firmly against hers, as his other hand now wrapped around the small of her back to draw her closer. The pounding of her human heart sounded dimly in his ears, and the sensation of her timid fingers in his hair shivered somewhere in the back of his mind.

Only for a moment, he was sure it could have been only for a moment; he would not have so acutely felt the absence of that touch when she drew back if it had not been fleeting, too brief to truly even consider. But he realized that it really did not matter, because it had been enough to drown him in thoughts and emotions only half comprehended.

And even then, as he felt a sort of hazy realization, there were just new questions to replace the old. Watching her hesitantly look back up at him, trying to hide her eyes in the shadows of her hair, he knew that he was no closer to understanding her than he had been before. All that had changed was that there were things he no longer understood about himself.

"This is incredibly foolish," he finally said, when his thoughts had calmed enough that he could even consider speaking.

Her eyes, still so close, flickered between his. "You think so?" she replied, but there was no disappointment in her voice; perhaps even she acknowledged the absurdity of permitting anything – and especially something so intimate – to bridge their worlds.

"Yes, that is what I think." He lifted his hand and slowly brushed away the hair that had fallen across her face, allowing his fingers to linger momentarily against her skin, before releasing her completely and turning toward the door.

It was not until he reached for the handle that he could speak again, trying to ignore how the coldness, which had never been uncomfortable before, was replacing the warmth she had managed to press into his flesh. "Yet…" _it is not what I feel_.

For a moment he glanced over his shoulder, wondering if she could discern the things he would not speak, if she would understand. Watching the smile slowly spread across her face, he knew that yes, she understood what he felt perfectly.


End file.
